


You Can Stay

by Rubicksmaster



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 13:24:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17468414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubicksmaster/pseuds/Rubicksmaster
Summary: A flurry of movement, an exchange, and the beginning of what might be friendship.





	You Can Stay

Clint thumbed through the file. It was thick, filled with pages sticking out, pages that outlined extensive lists of assassinations the Black Widow was responsible for. 

Nick had thrown the file at him as soon as Clint got back from Moscow. “What the fuck are you playing at, Barton?”

Clint wasn’t quite sure how to explain it. He knew his orders; find her and kill her. He had been looking down at her, bow drawn, before he decided to get a better idea of who she was. What she was. From what he had seen, he was surprised she wasn’t superhuman. 

So he tailed her, hopeful he could catch her acting human. He didn’t. And suddenly, she walked into a building, and he lost her. Halfway through cursing himself out because of course, of fucking course he lost her, he felt something behind him.

Of course it was her. Standing only a few feet away, holding a gun aimed at his head. He dropped his bow and raised his hands up in surrender. “Hey. Been meaning to meet you.”

Her face was unreadable. Clint swallowed but pushed on. “I’m Clint. You?”

“How did you find me?” 

“All business, huh?” Still nothing. Fine, okay, tough crowd. “I was sent to kill you.”

Her face flickered at that. It would’ve been a smile, but she forced it down, held any emotion back. That hit him, and in that moment, he knew he couldn’t kill her. That was a reaction he was intimately familiar with. He wasn’t allowed to feel once, a long time ago, almost a lifetime. “You’re not the first.”

“Oh, I know. Believe me.” He chewed his lower lip, trying to find what angle to play. “I don’t have to, though.”

“I do.”

“The Red Room Academy,” Clint blurted, and her face betrayed a flash of fear. On instinct more than anything else he ducked, her bullet narrowly missing his forehead. “That’s where you were trained, right?” He was speaking a mile a minute, his speech probably slurred, though he had no way of hearing it. “Nobody knows much about it, but I can take some guesses about what went on there.”

Her face was terrifyingly still. “What do you know?” He didn’t know if this was hissed or snarled at him. But he knew he was honest to god scared. 

“Nothing, just the name. I swear.” He looked into her eyes, trying to pick up on anything.

But if he was right, then this unfeeling mask in front of him was the only expression of fear she had been allowed.

Somehow, he talked himself out. He offered her a way out from whoever was in charge of her, and she was tired enough, somehow not broken enough, to take it. 

Now SHIELD was housing her in one of their underground cells, trying to figure out what the fuck to do with her, and Nick was about five seconds away from tearing out Clint’s esophagus. “She’s not dangerous.”

“Not dangerous?!”

Clint shook his head. “Trust me. I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t think it was for the best.”

Nick was pissed, and he probably would be pissed for a while longer, but he couldn’t deny the value of the intel they could potentially get from her, and Clint was given the task of softening her to them. 

He went downstairs and knocked on her door. She didn’t answer. A guard offered to open it, but Clint denied. It wouldn’t be any use if she didn’t let him in on her own. He did this for a week, and she never answered. Then the weekend came and he spent all 48 hours in his apartment, savoring the loneliness and freedom from work.

When he came back, he knocked again, turned down the guard again, and was prepared to leave before the smallest of movements drew his attention. “You weren’t here yesterday,” she said, peeking from a crack in the doorway.

“We get days off,” he replied.

Her eyes narrowed, and she went to close the door, but Clint shoved his foot in at the last second. “Can we talk?”

“No.”

“C’mon, you trusted me once. What's one more time?” Her expression remained unchanged, but the pressure on his foot lessened and the door opened just enough for him to push through. “What's your name?” he asked, leaning back on the wall.

She frowned for a moment, but said, “Natasha.”

“Hm. Very Russian.” Her expression hardened. “Sorry. It's true though. So. What about the Red Room?”

“I'm not talking about it.”

“Alright then. Tell me about how you got so good at what you do. Do you have powers? I'd buy it if the Russians were trying to recreate Captain America.”

“You're stupid,” she replied. “Training. It took a lot of training. We don't have to rely on secret serums to be strong.”

“That one Rocky movie would disagree,” Clint replied. Still no smile. Damn. “You're really human, though?” She nodded. “Shit. You're making me feel bad about myself.” That got her mouth to twinge upwards, if only for a second. 

“You're Hawkeye, right?” Clint grinned and nodded, happy to hear his alias was popular elsewhere. “Don't feel too bad. You've got better vision than I could hope for.”

“Thanks, it makes up for the deafness.” He smiled to reassure her that it was okay to laugh, his intention was to be funny. “Hey, I've got to go, because I didn't expect you to open up and I haven't eaten lunch yet, but I'll be back tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“Are you going to open the door for me?”

“We'll see.” 

Clint had a feeling that was a yes.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this check out my other stories ;). Hope you enjoyed. Until next time ~


End file.
